


It’s been a while, my friend.

by iirusu



Series: Where the Geese Fly and Bulls Cry [8]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, No Dialogue, POV First Person, Resolution, Set in 2020, Set in Red Lodge, The End, implied/referenced trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25375645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iirusu/pseuds/iirusu
Summary: I will never see you again.
Series: Where the Geese Fly and Bulls Cry [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1785916
Kudos: 1





	It’s been a while, my friend.

**Author's Note:**

> Reading this is probably best when listening to Tre by Kensuke Ushio
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etq6Ahk1MSc  
> https://open.spotify.com/track/6mUcRzBXfuEzBxC5Lflnwu?si=lBZ0TfaeS422CLXhQZEX6g

It’s been a while, my friend. We’re sitting across from each other in the abandoned bus you’d caught a glimpse of back in Red Lodge, and the snow is pelting from outside the windows. It’s so dim in here that I feel as though the interior is clouded in fog, or perhaps smoke, and we’re both lightly shivering. It’s cold. We aren’t really talking, we aren’t quite sure what to say, but you let out a contended exhale that carries a sense of finality with it. Outside the murky windows I know a blizzard rages on and being away from the snow and inside of the steadily creaking bus brings me comfort. It’s a chilled atmosphere in here, which I suddenly think would be eerie to us if in any other situation, but tonight, we are in a dream.

So, it’s been a while. You’ve slipped in and out of our being, your existence scarcely going noticed, for weeks. Your presence was so vague, I remember. But here, you’ve returned once again, for the last talk. I know this, and though it pains me still, to know you’ll be taking your leave, I know outside of our world in this dream, outside of my head, there are promises. There are promises that don’t include you. From here on out, you won’t exist anymore. You’d smiled so heartily hearing of it, and it was such a genuine embrace you had given me, when I’d finally told you that you weren’t needed anymore. 

It was unexpected when an agent rapped on the door and smiled gently at me, asking for my mother and knowing my name. I stepped outside and answered a few questions, though tearfully, and when they’d left, you’d jumped right out, your eyes watering and so sparkly from the lights around my bed. I knew you couldn’t believe what was happening just as much as I was, and that as you tried to convince me it was okay, you were trying to convince yourself, too. We really were useless together, weren’t we? You chuckle at the remark from across the bus. Your face is red and numb. I keep thinking, though.

It took so much help. It took so much convincing, and second guessing, and though we both loathe to admit it, bravery. After days of anticipating the call, our hearts jumping to our throats with every notification heard from the living room, it came, and it was time to talk. And so, after calming ourselves together and with a friend, we told of the flower. We told of the withering. When _the basement_ came up, I looked into their eyes the entire time, as if I was daring them to deny every word that fell from my tongue. When _seventh grade_ came up, I looked at my rolling veins and swallowed, feeling heavy. It seemed even as I left that part of myself, _‘far enough’_ wasn’t far enough. It still feels too close, those blades. That long hair. The wind. But by the end, I felt myself enveloped in comfort, and a promise for help. I knew that you were standing behind me then, watching everything. And when they’d left me to rest, you were sparkling. You were so, so happy. You took me into your arms and said that was it, it was finally over. You would be dying soon.

And so that’s it, isn’t it? We made it, together. It started with a poem, written late before dawn under a blanket of snow in May, and it seemed that it was there where you were born. You came in the cold, it seems that it's there where you'll leave, too. That day, you took a new form from the corners of my mind and became a person. You were more than me. You were more than the wind. I look up at you and remember that I’m getting a therapist soon.

The bus creaks at a gust of wind and when it settles I hold your gaze, and you hold mine. Tenderly as it should be, tenderly till the end. We’ve had our disagreements. You haven’t been kind to me these few years I’ve known you and I haven’t been much warmer. But I’m thankful. For your presence. For your kind words used sparingly, for the glint in your eyes, for all the secrets now not untold, for all the conversations in our bed and in my mind. The snow comes down harder for a moment. I don’t want you to go. But sitting from there across, with your fingertips turned purple and your eyelashes freezing over, you look so content. You look free. It’s not something either of us are familiar with. But it carries with it an air of finality. It’s over.

I reach over from my side and brush a strand of hair away from your face, and from how you’re cool to the touch, I know you’re almost gone. And then yet, in your final moments, so devoid of strength, you still look up at me, and hold my hand. It’s a send-off. So I let you go, and the blizzard fades. The bus stops rocking. 

I will never see you again.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This series is over. Thank you if you've read. I started this series in June after deciding to revise and edit a note on my phone that I had written in an attempt to express parts of my trauma and how I dealt with it in my head. It felt better to be able to make me and my mind into different people. It felt right for it to be a different person, to have a conversation. I didn't feel so alone. And so, as more came up and as I struggled more to deal with what I was feeling and thinking, I wrote. And well, now I'm here. It's been a few months since my repressed memories resurfaced and last week was when a CPS agent came to my door and everything felt too real. I broke down and told my parents. We met with the agent who came to my door, and I'm getting a therapist soon. I may write more later, in a different series. But this one, I want to bring to a close. I don't need conversations with myself anymore. I don't need this part of my mind. From here, it'll just be me.
> 
> (I will be adding another chapter to this work with the illustrations I've created in this time about my feelings.)


End file.
